This is true for most of USA too. While you probably won't get jailed for saying such, there are just as ridiculous laws and customs based on Christianity, especially compared to other more saner countries. Especially about gay marriage and abortion.

Actually, not quite true. Many state constitutions do specifically require that only Christians can hold public office (And some define Christian in such a way as to exclude denominations unpopular at the time of writing), but there was a supreme court case years ago which ruled that these aspects of the constitutions are incompatible with the first amendment to the US constitution - and the US constitution overrules state constitutions.

Yes, and some values are better than others. Notably, those values which result in the murder of people who are guilty only of speaking their mind, are the kind of values that should be treated with deserved contempt.

The difference between that young lady's story and what happened in Indonesia is this: people were just talking, online, about how much they hate her. When she is being beaten up, or people are shooting at her, or Molotov cocktails are being thrown, then maybe the comparison will make sense.

In America, you can voice your dissent, you can call people garbage, and you can do so for any reason -- even if you are calling them garbage for putting an end to a blatant constitutional infraction. The constitution protects the rights of atheists and religious people of all varieties equally, and that includes the right to be rude, insulting, and to hate the very constitution that provides you with those protections.

Hitler was not atheist in the slightest, he made many references to Jesus in his speeches. He also got to power in part thanks to support from right wing social conservatives and Christian fundies. In his speech to justify giving him emergency powers he calledon the neeed to protect germany from socialism and atheism.

You are right about Stalin being an atheist, but it wasn't atheism that motivated his actions. He just generally "eliminated" anybody who had power he could not control. The church was just one of many examples.

You are right about Stalin being an atheist, but it wasn't atheism that motivated his actions. He just generally "eliminated" anybody who had power he could not control. The church was just one of many examples.

It should also be noted that Russian communists were so violently anti-religious to a great extent because Russian Orthodox Church was, quite literally (ever since Peter the Great), a department of the state [wikipedia.org]. It actively worked both as official propaganda device of the monarchy - with "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality" [wikipedia.org] the official ideology of the Empire until its end - and also as part of its civil administration, dealing with marriages, schools etc. At the final years of Empire, many prominent members of the Church were also the ones promoting extremist views on the right side of the spectrum - extreme nationalism, absolute monarchy, pogroms against Jews etc. So most revolutionaries, who were already wary of religion from their doctrine, had plenty specific reasons to hate ROC in particular as an organization and as part of the oppressive state that they fought. And from there by extension they came to hate all organized religion. Then, when purges came, they swept in not only the top Church hierarchy, but also priests and even mere believers just as well.

1. In contrast to religious fundamentalists, none of those individuals set out with the primary goal of forcefully imposing atheism on the whole of society (as opposed to a broader socio-political agenda which may have included eliminating religion or reducing its power). The Russian Revolution was about economic subjugation and World War One. The French Revolution was about economic subjugation. Etc. etc. for all of your examples. Just because a particular revolution, war or movement includes as an incident an attempt to limit or destroy the power of organised religion does not make that event inherently "atheist" in nature.

2. You are a liar, or at best twisting the truth to suit your anti-atheist agenda. For instance:

Mussolini - 'Mussolini publicly reconciled with the Pope Pius XI in 1932, but "took care to exclude from the newspapers any photography of himself kneeling or showing deference to the Pope." He wanted to persuade Catholics that "[f]ascism was Catholic and he himself a believer who spent some of each day in prayer..." The Pope began referring to Mussolini as "a man sent by Providence." Despite Mussolini's efforts to appear pious, by order of his party, pronouns referring to him "had to be capitalized like those referring to God..."'

Napoleon - 'As an adult, Napoleon was described as a "deist with involuntary respect and fondness for Catholicism." He never believed in a living God; Napoleon's deity was an absent and distant God, but he pragmatically considered organised religions as key elements of social order, and especially Catholicism, whose, according to him, "splendorous ceremonies and sublime moral better act over the imagination of the people than other religions".'

Hitler - 'After his move to Germany, Hitler did not leave his church. Historian Richard Steigmann-Gall concludes that he "can be classified as Catholic", but that "nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context."' His interest in the occult is also widely documented.

As I found all of that in Wikipedia in about 10 seconds, I can only assume that you are deliberately being misleading.

Hitler was most emphatically not an atheist. He was a member of the Catholic church until his death, and was firm enough about it to order his peers to remain members. Mein Kampf, which he penned in his own hands, is replete with religious references. I encourage you to question what you've been told, because it's clear that you are accepting input from others who are plainly not rich in their historical education. Regardless:

When someone cites for me the list of "atheist" tyrants and the bad things they did, what I conclude is that when governments of any enforce religious creeds on the many, the result is always an epic fucking disaster. I hope this is your view as well.

When Ahlquist won Facebook and Twitter filled up with direct threats against her life and physical well being.When the Cranston Florists started a Facebook page to take a stand against the "atheist hate" directed at them for refusing to make deliveries to her, the content of the threads I looked at contained no threats of any kind. Lots of criticism, but not even that many insults.

It's night and day in behavior.

Sure, there are assholes on both sides. But the Christians appear to have the lion's share this time.

Do you have any actual evidence of that? Lynch mobs in the US peaked in the '20s or there abouts, they were almost completely "Christian" and they would lynch people for being black or Jewish.

Now the rates of such lynchings have gone down significantly since then and rates of atheism have gone up since then. We can't conclude anything at all from that, but it's kind of an interesting to keep in mind. Christians in the US do not have a monopoly on morality.

I don't actually know of any atheist country except maybe some communist dictatorships.

Most countries with a high number of atheists ( such as Sweden ) are best described as secular. The difference between a secular government and an atheist one, is that the secular one doesn't comment on whether there is a god or not. Secular governments are built on the principle that it is not for the state to promote religious beliefs ( or lack thereof ).

This is true for most of USA too. While you probably won't get jailed for saying such, there are just as ridiculous laws and customs based on Christianity...

Agreed. The US has many outdated laws based on the Old Testament. For example, did you know that murder is actually illegal in many states (particularly in the Bible Belt). And theft has many restrictions placed on it. Please, keep your tired old religions out of our law books!

The pro abortion groups could be more constructive by trying to negotiate towards a time or state that the government will recognize that an embryo switches to being a baby.

I don't know anyone who is "pro abortion", but plenty who are "pro choice". Some alternatives have been proposed: pre-conception (Catholic), conception (fundamentalist/protestant), second trimester (Roe v. Wade), "Can survive outside the womb" (some medical definitions), or even "one month after birth" (Jewish law in Jesus' time which he didn't seem to have a problem with).

I don't know anyone who is "pro abortion", but plenty who are "pro choice".

Pro life and pro choice are just market speak, the real issue is for or against the ability of women to legally have abortions. People who use pro life and pro choice are attempting to change the framing [wikipedia.org] in order to get people on their side.

imho, people should be blunt about a topic, speaking as eloquently as possible about their real point without trying to dodge things. This is not a dig at you, but at oh so many idealists that refuse to do so.

It's more a difference in how the situation is looked at. The pro-choicers see humanity as a matter of some type of standards. They can't agree on what it is that makes a human for moral purposes, though most would point to something about the brain, but they do agree there is *something* physical that makes humans different from other animals and thus worthy of protection under the law and a right to life. The pro-lifers though see humans as magic - to them, it isn't about the anatomy of the brain or stand

Remember that "pro-choice" means pro-choice for the woman, whereas pro-life means pro-choice for the human which will develop if the embryo not destroyed. There's nothing inherently correct about believing that a woman must or must not look after a fertilised embyro inside her, just as there's nothing inherently correct or incorrect about believing parents must look after their 8 year old kid.

The problem with the above logic is this.. even in this day and age, life from conception to birth is still has a really high morbidity rate. That is, women miscarry all the time for reasons that have nothing to do with abortion, and often times aren't even recorded. Sometimes the body determines that the embryo is not viable. Sometimes the embryo has a flaw which kills it early in the process. Sometimes it's late in the process. Sometimes random chance puts a perfectly viable embryo into a situation where it just grabbed onto the wrong spot (ectopic pregnancies), putting itself and the mother at risk. Post-birth, the morbidity rate drops significantly as the child's physiology isn't so dependent on a delicate balance between mother and child.

This is a problem that has no good solution. That there is a ton of controversy around it only reflects that fact. I'm pretty sure that even most pro-choice folks would carry the opinion that abortions should not be a replacement for responsible behavior, and that we'd all like to see them performed as little as possible. Mandating that they cannot be done for any reason whatsoever places those prospective mothers into servitude at the whim of a potential child which may not even make it to term, which may kill the mother, or which may inflict years of torment on an unfortunate victim of rape. The idea of banning abortions completely, or the current tactic of defining a fertilized egg as a legal person, is a problem for women because this natural process is about as high risk a venture as is ever carried out. Flexibility is a must when there is this much risk involved, if you value human life at all.

For my mind, though, I just can't stand the hypocrisy of (generally) the same folks crying for less government interference in their lives, while going on how you should live by their morals (injecting government into someone else's life). Can't have it both ways.

I think you're getting confused. Pretty much all the pro-choice groups and individuals are pro-contraception - in fact the biggest boogeyman of the anti-abortion movement in the US, Planned Parenthood, actually puts most of its resources towards providing contraception. It's the anti-abortion groups that tend to be against contraception, and in favour of telling kids in school that it doesn't exist and making it harder to obtain in general.

In a similar fashion, science shows precisely when abortion is no longer ethical, and it is when the baby develops a substantial part of its central nervous system.

Science may show the mental capacity of the fetus and it's ability to feel etc however by no means does this show when it is no longer ethical.

Ethics deal with morals, morals are generally based off values/goals, both of those can be arbitrary. Sure certain morals can convey a survival benefit etc, but survival itself could be considered a goal. Morals are a human construct, not an inherent aspect of the universe like things such as gravity etc.

And so the instant rebuttle to 'x is ethical' is generally, to whose ethics?

Atheism is not a religion, not even when you use "quotes". Atheism is relying empirical evidence rather than superstition. Atheism asks "why?" and doesn't accept "because god says" as an answer. It's hard to accept "we don't fully know yet", but it's a much better answer than "god". Once you write down "god" as an answer for something, you stop looking at the problem, or worse, it becomes taboo to look at the problem. That's a very bad place to be, because, god or not, I don't see anyone solving any human problems except for other humans.

It's one thing persecuting people for their religion but persecuting atheists is going too far.

A small minority of 'different' people in your community often makes people uncomfortable when part of the culture is professing just how right and good it is to agree and identify with the majority. When that minority attempts to become vocal they are by definition wrong and therefore it is justifiable to punish them. If all you have to prove that you're living your life correctly is the assertion by yourself and those around you that it is so any argument against what you believe is dangerous. Certainly authority figures (from politicians to parents) won't allow dissenting opinions to spread, like some horrible disease.

People aren't persecuted for their religion. They are persecuted because their religion (or ethnicity or social status or etc.) is different from the majority of those around them. Group-think and ignorance will attack what it doesn't understand or can't control in whatever form it takes.

One could argue that, historically, atheism is the most persecuted belief system still in practice. It would explain the relatively small proportion of the population that atheism makes up, as well as why that small proportion is spread throughout the world with no great central region to call home.

"Atheism is a belief system" is a definition born of an American cultural background. Since theism is the majority position (86%), the distinction between strong disbelief in make-believe beings Vs. mere indifference in same, is given exaggerated importance.

Well, first of all, atheism is not "a belief that there is no God," it is a lack of belief in any gods at all (for some reason, Christians insist that there is only one deity anyone could believe in). Someone who had never heard of any deities in their entire life would be an atheist: people must be taught to follow religions or believe in gods.

That being said, atheism is not a system at all. I am an atheist, but I still practice my religion -- I simply do not believe that deities exist, because there is no evidence to support that notion. Yet I still keep traditions, moral beliefs, and philosophies that emerged from my religion -- that is the "system." I am not alone in this -- it is more common in my religion than people would like to admit, and I suspect that it happens in other religions as well.

* Atheism: the value of P is "true"* Agnosticism: the value of P is "unknown"

Thus "atheism" is by definition a metaphysical belief system (or at least a component of one), because it affirms at least one particular propositional statement about metaphysics.

If you're trying to use formal logic, you'd do well to first learn the difference between "I believe there is no god", and "I don't believe there is a god". As it is, your analysis is incorrect because your initial premise is wrong.

By the way, agnosticism, in the proper sense of the word, actually makes a strong claim - that whether god exists or not - is fundamentally unknown and cannot ever be determined. In other words, it is a belief system, unlike e.g. weak atheism. Unfortunately, because many people don't quite understand what this actually means, it evolved into a misguided synonym for weak atheism.

It would explain the relatively small proportion of the population that atheism makes up, as well as why that small proportion is spread throughout the world with no great central region to call home.

I'd say australia is doing fairly well with the atheist business, the census five years ago indicated that approx 30% of australians don't believe in god. And of those that are religious australia has among the lowest church attendance rates in the world, even the believers rate it fairly low on their priorities placing family, work, leisure time and even politics ahead of it.

100 years from now Europe may be officially under Sharia Law?Now that's a cause for alarm and quick and resolute action if I ever saw one.We have only 100 years to come up with a solution - and these days 100 years ain't what it used to be.

100 years? I give it less than 10. Not for sharia law to be implemented, but for someone to get prosecuted for publicly claiming there is no god. Already, many EU countries have laws against insulting religion, and with tensions between various religious groups in Europe on the rise, that law is being applied more strict than before, and the European Court isn't making things any better with their guidelines on this matter. Already, advertising companies refusing ads like the "there's probably no god" campaign draws very little comment except statements like "that's understandable", while the same companies do show ads like "god is great" or "jesus loves". This same kind of thinking is argued in court cases: promoting your god is merely the exercise of freedom of religion, whereas stating that there is no god amounts to an insult to religion. As I said, I give it less than 10 years before this makes it into law, or at least into a EU court directive or guideline, or a ruling from the (batshit insane) EU Human Rights Committee.

31-year-old Alexander Aan faces a maximum prison sentence of five years for posting âoeGod does not existâ on Facebook. The civil servant was attacked and beaten by an angry mob of dozens who entered his government office at the Dharmasraya Development Planning Board on Wednesday. The Indonesian man was taken into protective police custody Friday since he was afraid of further physical assault.

The posting was made on a Facebook Page titled Ateis Minang (Minang Atheist), which Aan created. At the time of writing, it had over 1,700 Likes. Aanâ(TM)s posting has been removed, but supporters on the Page are urging police to release him.

I wonder if they were trying to make a believer out of him or just needed to re-assure themselves that they are right and he is wrong. Theirs must be a merciful god, a god of great compassion.

Atheism is a violation of Indonesian law under the founding principles of the country. Indonesia, the worldâ(TM)s most populous Muslim nation, recognises the right to practice six religions in total: Islam, Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhism and Confucianism. Atheism is, however, illegal. According to Indonesian criminal law, anyone who tries to stop others believing in a faith could face up to five years in jail for blasphemy.

However Buddhism is not just a philosophy, like a guide to a healthy life-style, because it has teachings about 'soul' and such, which again, make no sense to me.

Obviously I can accept somebody practising Buddhism because they find it useful for themselves somehow, but I see it as a religion, not just as some form of exercise that's simply good for one's health. I mean souls and karma?:) In real life, not on/. ?

I've been practising Buddhism for forty years and have only rarely encountered any discussion concerning the existence or nature of a "soul". It's not something that Buddhists tend to concern themselves about.

In fact, quite the converse. A fundamental observation of Buddhism is that dualism is illusory. Therefore, questions of whether there is or is not a soul are not meaningful from a Buddhist perspective. The doctrine of anatt> what appears in the Pali canon is very clear on this point.

What do you mean? Like the messages in the bibles are somehow self-consistent? The old and the new testaments? What are abominations? The entire creation mythology? Noah's arc? Miracles? Bizarre ideas on what is salvation and why it's needed? Is salvation really about Jesus or is it about moral codes? Is it about doing something or just believing in something?

How about the entire idea of confessions and getting forgiveness from church workers for pretty much any transgression, including murder? Mass murder?

Virgin birth. Resurrection. Incarnation. ONE god or three? Believing in things that don't have any actual proof of any kind, believing in things that are shown false by science, justifying continuation of believing even when proven false.

Faith does not require logic and it does not require consistency, it certainly does not require understanding falsifiability or requiring it.

Faith in fact requires complete abandonment of principles by which we make discoveries and by which we change our circumstance, and that's what faith is SUPPOSED to be, because if it was possible to PROVE a god, it wouldn't require faith.

And if god requires faith without any proof, and if somehow proof can be obtained, then isn't the purpose of having faith defeated then? And doesn't it mean in religion that in fact proof can never exist (and in science we know it cannot exist, because goalposts can never be reached, and proving a negative is not exactly what we can do).

Anyway, I am not trying to convince anybody in anything in terms of believing or not believing here, that's not the purpose of the story though it's easy to degenerate this story into that kind of a discussion.

I suggest you don't do that, stay on topic, and the topic is: government is evil and government mixing up with religion is even more evil and individual will be crashed by government that takes away power of choices from individual.

Of-course in all societies there are orthodox believers, and some of them in this story came to beat up this poor shmuck, who actually worked for the government apparently, but didn't understand the law there.

The Problem of Evil strikes me as one that has never really been answered. When you boil down even the most sophisticated theological arguments, it either comes out as sophistry or handwaving (ie. that's the way God wants it).

I fail to follow the leap in logic you made. Gov't is nothing more than 'garbage in, garbage out'. It's the people that made the laws, and it's the religion that people believe in that is dictating what laws are created.

I see this as just more evidence that institutionalized religion is the evil here.

Maybe you should follow the links in the comment (there are further links), but the point is not to abolish government, the point is to set the law above government in a way that it could not be circumvented.

The law above the government is Constitution (in USA at least), and it is completely abandoned. Suggesting that the choices are: what you have in USA and feudalism is stupid. How about: what you have in USA now and what you should have in USA - government that follows the law that is set above it exactl

Because many religious groups believe in a collective morality - when a person is immoral in the view of their religion, it is nothing less than an attack on all of society. Even if the offender's actions harm no-one but themselves, it is still the duty of the believers to ensure such offensive acts are not committed. Otherwise they will be guilty themselves for not fighting against the evil, and thus giving implicit endorsement.

It's a big part of why American churches are so dedicated to fighting homosexuality. In their view, if two men have sex together then the whole of American society is tainted by the presence of such sinners. This cannot be tolerated. In Indonesia, the same reasoning results in an angry mob believing it is their duty to ensure their society is not tainted in the eyes of their own God by the presence of blasphemers.

Yet another 3rd world reaction to the eternal pornographic issue - my deity is larger than yours.

Reminds me of one of my favorite Carl Sagan quotes:

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

Even the religions with science in the name ("Christian Science" and "Scientology") are profoundly against freedom of inquiry, except where it is used to glorify their mythology. This story kind of backs up the whole "our god is a little god, we must coddle it" approach.

One exception (and yes, it's nicely ironic that the Catholics have become just about the only form of Christianity that isn't anti-science) doesn't contradict what Sagan said: "Hardly any major religion..."

(The Anglicans show some signs of sense as well, but as far as I know, they haven't officially accepted evolution, like the Catholics have.)

Hmmm - I followed those links (thanks for providing - good ground work!) and have to comment that a good science textbook is a good science textbook, regardless of whether it was written by a catholic, a jesuit, an atheist or whatever the heck. At least one of the links point to good science textbooks (reportedly) written by catholics. If true, that's great. The world needs more good science textbooks. But the links imply that catholics embrace science because they have written these textbooks. I'd argue that's coincidence. Maybe they also all had dark hair and were right-handed.

Being a catholic doesn't preclude you from writing a good science textbook. It doesn't help, though.

And the people who wrote these textbooks have my admiration, as much as anyone who spreads knowledge and popularizes science.

Yep, those people from hundreds of years ago sure were dicks. I hear they had slaves back then too. I guess all of America is bad FOREVER because of the sins of their great great grandfathers. And the Europeans, sheesh, after what their ancestors did during the imperialist era, I guess we can't trust them either.

Religion is the most dangerous thing facing our population, not overpopulation. They all claim to be peaceful, but criticize them - and you'll see their true nature.

Do you realize that you're the first step on a dangerous road? Your generalizations will lead to believers being the next group hunted. I'm an atheist myself, but stating that religion is the most dangerous problem faced by society is both ridiculously naive and dangerous. There are believers who are a problem, but that does not mean that all religious types are nut cases.

Reverse psychology - you're right, it's equally dangerous to be pointing fingers at a minority, but religion is far from minority, in fact - it's directly responsible for wars all over the planet.

I'm all okay with religion as long as people don't take it to extremes, but history has proven over and over again that if you chose belief over facts - aka religion vs science, then you're bound to lose, no matter what the outcome would be as long as the outcome is anything but peaceful.

And history shows - people DO take things to an extreme. You don't see a bunch of scientist raging out on the streets over some cartoon-drawings, burning down embassies, cars and peoples homes?

All the guy did was tell the truth. One day maybe the world will get over believing in something created by folks attempting to explain the world around them. Doubtful in a few hundred lifetimes, but we can dream.

Perhaps way way way way way waaaaaay back in the day, it was created to explain something. Over the millennia it has been warped into a moral and ethical control system, by which the leaders of some cult-like secret societies can dictate what is right and wrong to the world.

In the southern India in the state of Tamil Nadu atheistic parties gained lots of ground in the 1960s. ( Even now all the dominant parties there eulogize a noted atheist, but the parties themselves have become more tolerant towards theism). One of the fanatical members of this atheistic party named his son "God Does not Exist" (kadavul-illai in the local language). Name was found to be too long for the liking of his teachers and classmates. So they shortened it to "God" (kadavul). So, yes, I could have spoken to God, if I had gone to that school. God flunked eighth grade and dropped out of school, if I remember it right.

Nonsense. "Religious freedom," in today's parlance, doesn't mean freedom to try and force your religion upon another person; it means freedom from other religions which are persecuting your religion, so you can be free to persecute other's religions. It's the theological equivalent to a "cease fire," during which you rapidly reload and pick some new allies / various weaker enemies to annihilate during the down time. It is, from my standpoint, breathtakingly boring, but since every side "believes" it can win

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, recognises the right to practice six religions in total: Islam, Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhism and Confucianism. Atheism is, however, illegal.

I'd go with Confucianism. If nobody can understand what he said, nobody can understand if you are practicing it or not.

If you live amongst a horde of unpredictable religious fanatics, it's best to keep your mouth shut.

GodWhat is it good forAbsolutely nothingGodWhat is it good forAbsolutely nothingGod is something that I despiseFor it means destruction of innocent livesFor it means tears in thousands of mothers' eyesWhen their Gods go out to fight to take their lives

GodWhat is it good forAbsolutely nothingSay it againGodWhat is it good forAbsolutely nothing

GodIt's nothing but a heartbreakerGodFriend only to the undertakerGod is the enemy of all mankindThe thought of God blows my mindHanded down from generation to generationInduction destructionWho wants to die

GodWhat is it good forAbsolutely nothingSay it againGodWhat is it good forAbsolutely nothing

God has shattered many young men's dreamsMade them disabled bitter and meanLife is too precious to be fighting Gods each dayGod can't give life it can only take it away

GodIt's nothing but a heartbreakerGodFriend only to the undertakerPeace love and understandingThere must be some place for these things todayThey say we must fight to keep our freedomBut what?, there's gotta be a better wayThat's better thanGod

GodWhat is it good forAbsolutely nothingSay it againGodWhat is it good forAbsolutely nothing

The conventional wisdom is that it's not possible to take down a major religion. The US, though, did it once - after WWII, the US Army took down State Shinto [wikipedia.org] in Japan.

It's worth understanding how that was done. It took not only a military victory, but a determined large-scale occupation, with far more occupying troops than the US used in Iraq. It didn't prohibit worship. It pulled the plug on public funding of Shinto. It eliminated any political power wielded by religious figures. Separation of church and state was forcibly imposed on Japan. It worked.

"God" exists,"God" is a concept oh so useful to the hierarchs."God" is a pernicious lie told to the sheeple under the steeple, to keep the path to power steep, to make the disloyal (called the unfaithful) weep."God" makes beautiful music. No arguing with that."God" the great pacifier in the sky - "peace be upon him/her/it"

"God", What a concept! - so much much bigger and badder than "Unicorns".

Reality: defn 1: That which is still there after you stop believing in it. Why does "God" need belief so much? Because it's just an abstract frickin' IDEA. Without belief, or at least being thought about, or written down, or sung about, it doesn't exist. It is only the IDEA of "God" that has an effect on the world.

There are presently 69 comments that show as +5 under my preferences. (Long ago I think I disabled the funny bonus since some moderators have a tau on fart jokes suitable for dating planetary origins.)

Not one of these premium insights mentions Christopher Hitchens, far and away the most outspoken critic of clerical terrorism, much of which originated in the Salmon Rushdie context, and since expanded.

Slowly I've been recruited by ugly world events to Hitch's analysis of fatwa fascism.

Hitch makes a point about Iran that their nuclear ambitions and their intransigence on democracy are inseparable: the nuclear card is a gambit to retain domestic political power.

In the same way, if top leadership endorses fatwa decrees, the general population is going to feel far greater inclination to break down doors and lay on a can of whup-ass over dissenting opinion.

Theologians can pursuade themselves of anything. Anyone who can worshipa trinity and insists that his religion is a monotheism can believeanything -- just give him time to rationalize it. Robert A. Heinlein, JOB: A Comedy of Justice

The problem is that Islamic civilization was not always as you describe, nor is it even now. At one time, many Islamic societies were far more advanced and open than their Western European counterparts. What you're saying makes about as much sense as condemning Christianity based on what you find wrong in Catholicism.

You could check out the Umayyads that ran Spain. During their time in power, Spain was the most advanced state in Western Europe; and Jews were shown far more tolerance than in almost anywhere in Christendom. As well, check out medieval Baghdad, which was one of the great centers of learning and scholarship in the Medieval world, up until the Mongols burned it to the ground, with the loss of thousands of Classical and High Muslim volumes.

Modern Islamism, by and large, is a response to the failure of the Ottoman Empire and the fallout from that (which, one way or the other, the Middle East is still going through). The first seriously effective hard core conservative Islamist sect was the Wahabis, who were striking out against what was viewed in the Arabian peninsula as the decadent ways of the Ottoman Empire.

I don't know about GP, but as an atheist, it would seem to me that said stunning country and its amazing people have actually made it illegal for me to enter. Or, at least, to truthfully answer any question about my religion if I do.

Assuming "he" exists, he probably has better things to do with his time than worry about some carbon-based life form on one of billions of planets in one of billions of solar systems that makes up "creation"....

Personally, I like the pagan version of it... yes, gods exist, no they're not omnipotent, they're certainly not perfect, and Yahweh is a self-absorbed twat with delusions of adequacy. The best analogy I ever heard was that he's like the cheerleaders in high school... petty, vindictive, cliquish, and vain.